Post by Spackz in The Four Moon Daughters comments

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Ah yeah! I tuned down the enemy numbers so it will hopefully flow nicer now! I’ve thought of some ways that should make combat feel less rng-dependant/make the player input matter more for in the future when battles become a bit more challenging, whilst also keeping it simple. I just need to figure out how to make it work xD

As for the affinities, I’ll try to hold off mentioning it here as there’ll be a bit in the story that will properly explain what behaviours increase which affinities (and also why they don’t increase based on what they intuitively should)

And ah whoops, I think that was a line I was supposed to change! I was planning to mention that stuff on the floor had been jostled around a bit in the update :o I should probably also put more focus on the player shutting the trapdoor quickly when they first leave

And aaa thank you! :D

Liz Aardt1 year ago(+1)

You're welcooome!

On the combat department: currently, it did indeed felt less frustrating, sadly not yet engaging.

The more I think of the combat, ~~the less I see how to balance it~~ (guess writing my thoughts about it gave me some inspiration, sorry for the essay~) : if the card roll does not give you enough power, or a winning combination, it does just feel frustrating. I don't remember how monster damage is computed, but I never had the feeling I could do something to minimize the damage taken. It felt more like "roll a dice? no luck? you're screwed that turn!"

On the other hand, when the cards are too generous, it become so easy to break the seal and keep 10+ damage than having the right number don't really matter anymore. - in that case it's on the bland side by the lack of challenge.

The card matching is only enjoyable when your available resources is pretty close the the monster's card ; in your favor, so it become a puzzle of "how can I break all rack as much damage as I can" - however it is not that rewarding since you're only able to rack 2 or 3 extra point of damage on a pretty big health bar, and I do assume that will become stale pretty quick too.

In all cases, I think this system is, for now, a pure optimisation problem that sadly don't propose the player any meaningful or long term choice.
Note than I have zero idea on the kind of player you target, nor if having a challenging/brain racking fight are your objective - having something simple that change for the story may be your goal, in that case it's pretty spot on (even if not my cup of tea) - in short: please stay true to your game vision! I'll be happy if any idea below inspire you or are used in the game, but only do so if it is in line with what you had in mind! (and also beware I have zero clue if these idea would really be fun, nor how long they would take to balance)

Not having enough resources to break everything could be OK, or even fun, if each card to break had specific effect, and you're tasked to decide which to destroy (like, "deal 3+X damage on player (X being the current card value)" ; "deal 20 damage", "this card heal the boss by 10" ; "when breaking, that card inflict 2x the extra amount as damage to the boss, up to 10" ; "if broken the boss will have 1 less card the next turn", "can only be broken by matching it value exactly, do XXXX")

Having more long term decision could also be nice. It could be done with card that last until destroyed ("deal 3 damage, then the card take 5 damage, does not disappear at the end of the turn") ; or the ability to player to retain card from one round to the other and draw X between round - up to a certain hand size (this way they decide to either spend their card now, or have more card the next round).
That ability to keep card would mesh well with some vision on what card the boss will play on the next turn (it create an "should I keep my card to counter that big attack that is coming, or should I try to dump as much damage as I can now?")

On alternative (or additional) idea to give more interesting decision to the player would be to give a "power" to each card. Currently, each card have a "if it stay in your hand, deal cardValue damage to the boss".
Instead they could have a variety of effects ("draw an extra card next turn", "deal X damage to the boss" (that may not be the same value than what is on the card), "next turn, all extra card give +1 damage to the boss if kept in hand") to give the the player some thought about which card they may want to pick ; or if they prefer matching the boss's card value for the extra damage or keep specific cards instead.

Spackz1 year ago(+1)

Ooo, thank you for the nice ideas :D
I've been messing around with the numbers and doing some playtesting, and yeah, the difficulty is definitely in finding that right balance between fun and unfair(and engaging/boring). I want to avoid it becoming a full MTG/Heartstone style tcg, but for it to still be an enjoyable change of pace between stretches of text. One minor change I'll probably make is booping the critical break damage up to about 5 - which so far has made the whole thing flow much nicer and allows for tougher fights with it still feeling more player-involved.
This is poteeentially heading into spoiler territory, but the idea of cards doing more specialised things was actually where I'm (hopefully) planning to take the combat in the future :O (characters would get character-specific cards that could do specialised things, like destroy a defence-slot regardless of its value etc. - with each character having a focus) - but that's still very much in the oven xD
I do like the strategy involved with holding onto cards, and I want to eventually try and create something that uses that, but that'll probably be when I have a clearer idea of how best to let it play to the player's advantage :O
Ah, also one more idea I have that I've played around with a bit is actually to have defence-slots hidden at the start of each turn - but have them able to be revealed by burning a low attack against them - although I might save this only for specific enemies...

But aa thank you again! I'm gonna try and get special cards working so I can really start making the fights a bit spicier :D

Liz Aardt1 year ago(+1)

You're more than welcome! I do enjoy bouncing idea regarding game design, so I have to say, my pleasure!

I definitively can see how doing more damage on critical break would make the combat flow better ; my main grip with it is it didn't felt that rewarding with how many HP mob had ; I was just looking at it as a bonus if you managed to save all of your power more than something to really aim for. Definitively happy with that change!

Somehow, I wonder why I did not expect than protag would get a bit mouthy with other body too - it's in hindsight pretty obvious that is bound to happen, and indeed having different body doing different things make sense. I'm a bit concerned on how it would affect the narration (partially because I liked the flow between maggot and protag (which doesn't mean other character would not be great to have as brain-friend) ; and partially because if you have the choice to which body bring at which part of the game may lead to an to a pretty huge number of alternative dialogue to do)

As for the holding card mecanism, IMO anything that would increase player choices would be an interesting improvement - currently the combat is like one minipuzzle after another, each disconnected from the last - kinda like you have a hand, have to react to that, and that's only what agency the player have on combat, which is not much.
Anything that allow how you did a puzzle affect the next one (like, which card you did held, which effect you did not break, or any ressources sytem (like mana) you used or not) may make the combat more engaging, because it gives more agency/choice.

I'm not sure I understood how these hidden defense slots are supposed to work ; is it like, defense slot with a ? on these and you need to use any card to show them?
If yes I do think that mecanism may be on the frustrating side: I can see myself burn a card to reveal it and now don't have the right card to critical break it, which would feel a bit too RNG heavy and may not be that fun. As a gimmick for specific enemy, it may work at making them (frustratingly) memorable, but I hope it either won't work as I expect it to do or not be a recurring mechanic.

You're welcome again o> And thanks for taking the time of explaining a bit on what you're aiming for!

Spackz1 year ago(+1)

Ah nice! I can't say much about the narrative/dialogue side of things just in case I accidentally spoil stuff, but hopefully it will work out well!
And yeah, any encounters with hidden defence slots would need to be balanced a bit differently to usual combat either way - I'm hoping to, if I do use it at all, have it so that the player can lessen the disadvantage through earlier dialogue/action options, but I still want it to be enjoyable even if people don't do these earlier preparations :D
And no worries! Sorry that I haven't been able to work much on the next part with nanowrimo going on, but I'll hopefully have it ready soon(ish)!

itch.io

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